Beyond the Door
by magicslifer
Summary: Maleficent is dead.  The X-Blade is forged. So why is Sora only growing more distant by the day.  More often the power of the X-Blade speaks to him.  As time draws thin, Riku will have to make a deadly choice.  His best friend or his duty to King Mickey?


AN: So here we go with the first chapter of Beyond the Door. For anyone who stuck with me through the haphazard first arc and the inconsistency of it, I appreciate it greatly. For anyone starting up new, I would recommend reading The Last Crusade first so you won't be totally lost. This is part 2 of a 3 part series although all 3 are really one big story, just split into 3 arcs. For the sake of my sanity, I separated it into 3 individual stories (If Lord of the Rings and Star Wars can get away with it, so can I!). Unlike the last story that I had an outline for but only wrote when I had time and then published right after finishing the editing, I'm doing this one more professionally and hoping to finish at least half the story and have it edited before I put up this first chapter so that updates can be more consistent and less improvised. I'll be busy with grad school applications and getting ready to graduate this spring so here's hoping it works out. For anyone who has read any of my stories, you know I love to get reviews since they give me ideas for how to improve or improvise, so anyone who is willing to reply will be greatly appreciated and I'll build you a shrine in my home and burn incense in your name…don't judge how far I'll go for reviews….Anyway, that's all for the time being. I do hope you enjoy the first story of the second arc as the real plot of the story begins to come into play.

**Chapter 1:**

**Clash of Brothers**

It had been two weeks since Sora made his private vow on the waterfront of the Destiny Islands. Much had changed since that time but a great deal was still chaotic. Approximately half of the refugees and fighters had returned to their home worlds after Mickey had sent out teams to determine which were stable. Mickey's original expectation of one or two months for all the worlds to be fully restored had now been moved up to a month at the most for all the refugees still on the Islands to return to their home worlds.

The civilians who had been brought back to life on the Islands had worked hard to do their part. The fighters had done their job in saving the world. Their job was to rebuild and salvage the wreckage. While the world had been restored to its previous state, they still needed supplies and shelter for those still trapped there for the time being. Furthermore, the Islands were still in a great state of disrepair from before the battle's start due to Heartless attacks. Since they were not part of the damage from the battle, they had not been repaired by magic that had restored the worlds. The civilians, along with several refugees Mickey had sent to aid them, had begun to repair the town and while progress was moving along quite well, there was still a lot to be done before the Islands would be fully repaired.

Two things however continued to bother Sora tremendously though. The first being that King Mickey continually refused to allow Sora to lead a combat party to attempt retaking Disney Castle. He continued to insist that it was an unnecessary sacrifice of lives when they were stretched too thinly as it was. Furthermore, Yen Sid had performed a spell to show the amount of Heartless in any given world. Disney Castle was overrun to say the least and the numbers were growing by the day. While this wouldn't be unusually if they had a stronger dark power drawing them there, to see Heartless coming together outside of the World of Darkness was strange. This had worried Sora and had only increased the amount of requests he threw at the King to allow him to storm the world. However King Mickey remained adamant that he would not allow an expedition that would cost lives needlessly. Disney Castle was not of utmost important right now and would be retaken when more pressing problems had been dealt with.

However, he also refused to allow Sora to take a Donald and Goofy to track down Kairi and Cid's ship either. His reasoning was that such an excursion would need either a large group of fighters, which was impossible due to their small numbers, or for Sora or Riku to lead a small party with Donald and Goofy personally to have any real chance of success. Furthermore, a small group of three would take a great deal of time. The amount of time King Mickey felt such an excursion would take was too great for him to spare one of his two best fighters. If Cloud had still been there, Mickey had said he might have considered sending him, as he was experienced in traveling the worlds and had contacts across the cosmos but Cloud had not been found after the battle and Mickey had labeled him missing for the time being.

Mickey's refusal to cooperate with Sora in finding Kairi had been a major speed bump in their friendship. The fact he was also refusing to make an attempt on Disney Castle made things even worse between the two. While he was in the world once during his last journey, Sora had learned an interesting fact about the Cornerstone of Light. It did not simply emit light and protect against darkness. It could also detect strong presences of light and locate them. While normally this would not be very useful since a person's light would be too small to be detectable, but a Princess of Heart was conceived of pure light. Therefore, the cornerstone could have been used to give them a general location for her. When Sora had confronted Mickey with this fact that by retaking the castle they could get a possible location on Kairi, Mickey had shot the idea down, repeating that the Castle was off limits, regardless of the possible benefits and simply dismissed him.

How could the King be so blind? He was a Keyblade Master like Sora! He should know better than to just sit around. They needed to act!

'_He does not trust you. He knows your power. He knows you can overpower him now. He's being a fool, take control and do what you know to be right. Who will save Kairi if not you?'_

"_I WON'T hurt King Mickey!"_

"_Of course you won't" That soft voice was almost infuriatingly calm and placating, "You simply need to do things for yourself. Since when do you need King Mickey's permission to save your friend...?"_

_Now that he thought about it though, it was making a lot of sense. Mickey was just leaving Kairi alone, possibly under attack._

"_Did the King ask your permission when he thrust the responsibility of saving the worlds upon your shoulders?"_

"_No…but he was the King, he did what he had to…"_

"_Did he tell you the full truth about Xehanort from the beginning or did he feed it to you in bits and pieces?"_

"_He…never had much time…He was always running…"_

"_Yes Sora, he never had time to really explain to you. Explain the facts to you so that you would be informed. Instead, he simply pushed you to risk your life."_

"_I…"_

"_He could have ended Maleficent long ago. He has the power. Instead he allowed her rise to power and that cost you your relationship with Kairi"_

"_But…"_

"_Instead, we had to clean up his mess and now, when you're free to have Kairi again, she's gone and he won't let you save her, as if you're a pet to obey his commands. Are you not the Keyblade Master?"_

_He had no answers any longer._

"_Would a real Keyblade Master abandon his best friend when she might be in danger? Would he not act with his heart and do what his heart knew to be right? Why do you refuse to listen to your heart Sora? You know this is the truth…We can find the answers together Sora. I am You, You are I, We are One…"_

"Sora?"

The sudden sound of Riku's voice startled Sora from his mental debate. He had not even realized how long he had been standing on the beach front. Before, the sun had not even been rising, now it was fully risen on the horizon. He must have been standing there reflecting for at least an hour or two if the height of the sun was any indication. Still, he couldn't get the words of that voice out of his mind. It was like a broken record, repeating continuously on a constant stream.

Still, he tried to force a carefree smile on his face so Riku would not suspect something was bothering him. Ever since he began arguing with Mickey, Riku and he had been tense around one another. Although still brothers in all but blood, there was just something that seemed to separate the two of them since the battle.

"Hey Riku, what are you doing up so early?"

"You're asking me that? Normally Kairi and I used to have to pry you out of bed with a crowbar in the morning."

Just as easily as the friendly banter had been made between the two, it was gone as Kairi's name came up. While both boys were worried about her, they took different approaches. Riku's faith in the king was strong, as was his faith in Kairi and he knew that while he wanted to go find her, that his duty to the worlds came before one friend. It didn't help that Sora could sense something was different about Riku since the battle. There was a calm aura that surrounded him, a power in his every movement. It was almost intimidating to look at. If it weren't for the X-Blade, he wasn't sure if he would be able to defeat the older teen any longer in sheer one on one combat.

With the playful tone of the conversation abandoned due to Kairi being brought up, Riku stepped up next to Sora, both boys looking out into the horizon.

"She's out there Riku…She's out there without any way to protect herself and we're just sitting around here keeping busy."

A sigh came from Riku lips, as if he had had this internal debate many times before:  
>"She'll be fine Sora. She has Cid with her and they will watch out for each other. Plus, she does have a Keyblade, we both taught her. Another thing, please do not talk like that. We aren't wasting time. The King has explained his reasons and-"<p>

"And what! What's more important that helping Kairi, Riku? I'm supposed to sit here happy and help with rebuilding when I could be out there doing something important?"

"You're doing something important here as well Sora! You're the Keyblade Master! You inspire hope for the people here. They see you and they think they can make it through this. If you leave, they'll be alone and while King Mickey might be a great king, you're one of them in their eyes. They look to you for strength. They draw their courage to get up every morning from you!"

"I get that Riku, really I do. However, I can't just sit here and wait for things to fall to pieces again. There's so much to be done and so many dangers left out there. I can feel them!"

Here, Sora's voice dropped to a sad whisper as the X-Blade flashed into his hand and he looked down at the cold, metallic blade.

"I feel everything. Everyone's despair, their pain. I feel the darkness and the hatred polluting the worlds, like a smog that makes the air difficult to breathe. None of you can understand the burden this is. I feel all the people when they are attacked by random heartless, I hear them cry out for help as those monsters rip their hearts out like fresh meat. What's more is that I can feel Kairi! I can feel her light. I can't locate her nor can I tell where she is, but I can feel the light in her heart like a warm heat on my skin. She's out there and I won't sit here waiting for permission to go find her."

Riku's eyes turned hard as steel, as he turned his gaze away from the waterfront and directly towards his best friend and brother.

"You're a Keyblade wielder and you gave King Mickey and Disney Castle your allegiance. It's time to grow up Sora and learn to do your duty. You have a responsibility to the worlds and you can't just go off and do whatever you want anytime you want."

"Well seeing as he won't let me retake the world, it doesn't seem like there's much of a Disney Castle to have an allegiance to anymore Riku! I think he just wants to stay here so he can keep an eye on me! He doesn't trust me."

"Don't be stupid. The King trusts you. We just all have to be careful with what with do at this point. It took years to get rid of Maleficent and now that she's finally gone" Here Riku awarded Sora with a nod of gratitude and recognition before continuing "things will need some time to get stabilized. The fate of the castle can wait a while longer. If we just charge in headfirst without being coordinated and planning things out, then we could be in for a slaughter. While Maleficent may be gone, we do not know what kinds of traps she may have left behind in the castle to guard against any potential intruders."

It was here that Sora scoffed; "Defeated? Us? I know full well that I can take anything the darkness throws at me. I can go to the level beyond where we are currently Riku. The level King Mickey seems almost afraid to even consider! I have an obligation to these worlds Riku, you're right about that. However, I also have an obligation to keep on fighting and working to undo the damage that witch did and if it means I have to defy King Mickey in order to do so, then I guess it will be an unfortunate sacrifice. If he cannot do what is necessary, then I'll have to step in and do his job for him."

Before Sora could even blink, Riku's blade was in the older boy's hand and was at the ready. There was certainly no play in his voice or attempt to hide the warning in his voice any longer:

"Just what exactly are you suggesting Sora? I hope that I am just misunderstanding you because that sounds an awful lot like treason against the high castle of Disney. The keybladers have sworn allegiances to uphold the King of the Worlds' rule dating back to the Treaty of the Crossroads. Now you're talking about going against the King's direct order? Have you lost your mind Sora? Did the time you spent in the Realm of Darkness do this to you?"

Sora did not even register that the X-Blade had been summoned forth and both of the young men were in battle ready stances, their weapons poised to do what needed to be done, far too prepared for a simple practice sparring match.

"I'm going to find Kairi, Riku…There is more to these worlds than what we've seen. There cannot be just darkness and light. There has to be something that goes…beyond the final door. This X-Blade, I know that with this power I can go beyond the final door and end the suffering in the worlds. Don't you understand, I'm trying to save the worlds and I won't let you stand in my way anymore! Not you, not the King, nobody is going to stand between me and finding and saving Kairi and the worlds altogether.

With that, the first true clash of steel between the two brothers in all but blood sounded across the beach. However, while Riku was sadly determined, Sora held nothing back. Nor was the powers of the X-Blade a myth of exaggeration. In addition, Sora held nothing back in using them. In his desperation to block the onslaught of attacks, he missed the glint in Sora's eyes. So possessed was Sora by a need to solve the problems that plagued him that the soft blue hue of his eyes had become cold as ice, indifferent to the person he was fighting.

It took less than a minute for the brutally attacking Sora to best the reluctant Riku. Quickly, the silver haired youth laid helpless on the ground at Sora's mercy. However, it was with a uniquely Sora-esque act that the blunt of the blade only smashed against his skull so that he was merely knocked out instead of losing his head entirely. As he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was the still armed Sora heading towards the temporary docks for what few gummi ships remained in the hands of the resistance fighters. Something had changed in his best friend. Something was very different to say the least.

It was only a short time later that saw Sora blasting away from the world into the abyss of worlds damaged by the wrath of Maleficent. Behind him on the beach lay several unconscious workers who had tried to stop him from taking the ship. They hadn't understood they he alone knew what needed to be done and what was in the best interests of the worlds. No one could understand the burden he bore by wielding the X-Blade. Perhaps it would come back to bite him, defying King Mickey and hijacking a gummi ship to go off on his own but he just knew what needed to be done. He would find the source of hatred in the worlds and eradicate it. The X-Blade would serve him well. Then, with Kairi safe and the worlds truly restored, things could truly get back to normal. Therefore, it was with a resolute heart and a calm mind that he rocketed off towards Disney Castle.

AN: Sorry this took so long, real life was a pain all summer and into this month and while I had much of this written, I just never had the utter inspiration to write. I know this is crude so I'm hoping it meets up to the standards you have for me, even if not the ones I set for myself. If you would leave a review, I would certainly appreciate it. If there's a character you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see if I can work them in some way. Anyway, leave a review and make me a very happy person?

**Next time: The Darkness of Disney Castle**


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